When waiting for lift/elevator most of us will push the call button repeatedly, even though we know it doesn’t do any good to press it more than once. This tells us a lot about our human response to anxiety. We keep pushing the button because we are cognitively hard wired to do something when we feel anxiety, not because we have an illusion that it accomplishes anything.

Metaphorical button pushing can be observed when leaders and managers are faced with an anxiety-inducing problem that they can’t do anything about. But in this context, button pushing takes the form of meetings, planning sessions, the setting up of special teams, team retreats, etc. These activities tend to give us a sense on control and make us feel better. But as good as it makes us feel, holding more meetings is almost always the wrong answer, as are most of the other displacement activities in which managers engage, e.g. writing reports, creating PowerPoint presentations, commissioning surveys, pacing around the office making sure that everybody is doing something that at least appears to be productive. At best, these are harmless button-pushing behaviours. But more likely they are counterproductive because they take time and attention away from other things and communicate to the organization a sense of anxiety. When did you last ‘button push’ ? And what should you have been doing instead?